Running up to Record Store Day 2019: Part One, the 10" single

In the run up to Record Store Day 2019, I thought it would be nice to dig out some of the more unusual items in my record collection and tell you a bit about them.

Today, it's all about the 10" single.

Over the years I have acquired four 10" singles which, thanks to their size in relation to the 12"s and 7"s, sit in glorious isolation at the front of my rack of 12"s.

The second 10" (we'll get to the first one in a bit...) I bought was Sonic Youth's '100%' in 1992. It was pressed on orange vinyl and was a concentric groove record, which I (eventually) realised meant that two different tracks were pressed onto one side of vinyl inside each other rather than in parallel.

In practical terms, this means that if you put the needle down on side A you can never be entirely sure if you'll be getting '100%' or 'Creme Brûlée'  or, on side B, if it's going to be 'Genetic' or 'Hendrix Necro'. If you get the one you don't want, you have to lift the needle off and put it down slightly behind or in front of where it was to get the other track. I mean, there's probably a more precise way of doing it, but I'm not a sound engineer.

I was 13 when I bought this single, and there was no Google so I had no idea why there was this random element to my listening pleasure. For ages I just thought it had been pressed in a weird way. Which, I suppose, it had really.

In addition to being a concentric groove 10" on orange vinyl, the record was individually numbered. It just screams early 1990s indie exclusivity. Even though Sonic Youth were signed to Geffon, which was hardly an indie label. It was post Nirvana's Nevermind, and as such, how things were done.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's Amber Gambler EP differs from the Sonic Youth 10" in a number of ways. Not just aesthetically and sonically, but also because it was released on a genuine indie label, Ankst, in Cardiff. But, as with the Sonic Youth single, it was also released on orange (or 'amber') vinyl.

It's typically Mynci in many ways, and captures the band at the point where they were about to leave Ankst to sign to Mercury in a bid for the big time.

Not only did the deal with Mercury lead to such knowing singles as 'Young Girls, Happy Endings', it also severely hampered the band in their desire to sing in Welsh. On their albums for Ankst, they'd made a point of singing half in Welsh, half in English, but Mercury weren't up for them doing that and compromises had to be made.

The Amber Gambler EP, as their final release for Ankst, represents the band at their weird and wonderful varied best. 'Lucy's Hamper' is a lovely slice of folk whimsy, there's a psychedelic take on country, and a lengthy piece of piano led orchestral. All in all, it is quite wonderful.

The oddity that is the 10" single is best reflected by the one off collaboration that is Taylor Meets The Headcoatees, which I eventually tracked down in Leeds' Jumbo Records. I'd previously heard Brian from Mancunian enfant terribles Bette Davis and the Balconettes play 'Meet Jacqueline' during one of his DJ sets at the Night & Day, and felt it was a particularly dance floor friendly slab of big beat garage infused pop. The patrons of the Night & Day didn't agree with me though.

This is effectively a re-mix 10", with the likes of 'Meet Jacqueline' and 'Have love, will travel' being given the big beat and drum'n'bass treatment alongside slighter and more tenuous bits of sonic experimentation. The double disc remix of Mirah's works, released as Joyride a number of years after this 10", works in a similar way: Remixers having fun with unfamiliar material to create a series of soundscapes often unrecognisable, frequently weird, but generally always interesting. As in both cases, once was probably enough.


The picture disc 10" of Voice of the Beehive's 'Perfect Place' is, at once, both the first and final 10" single I purchased.

I originally bought a copy from what was the only record shop in Hazel Grove at the time. I remember it as a very small, slightly dingy shop on the A6 that was very random in terms of what it stocked. It was staffed by a fantastically curmudgeonly man who always seemed to be either chatting to one of his friends in person, or chatting to one of his mates on the phone whenever I went in, which was generally on my way home from school. This would mean that I would have to wait ages to get served. Aside from any passing friends of this bloke, I would always be the only person in the shop so, in retrospect, it came as no surprise whatsoever when the shop closed down a few years later.

I purchased 'Perfect Place' at the height of my Voice of the Beehive period, so I would have been about 12 I think. Alongside the excellent title track, the single also included a non album track 'Shine Away', which was great, and two live tracks - a slightly sweary 'I say nothing' and an average take on James' 'Sit Down' (to be fair, I never liked the original either).

I basically played it to death and then, having tired of it, sent it to the charity shop when I was about 15. I later re-purchased it from Imbroglio in Sheffield sometime in my twenties.

3 Little Pieces

Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

It's a day for publishing little pieces.

After a bit of a flurry of longer length articles a couple of weeks ago, today has seen me writing about individual tracks and compiling this month's F-Word music blog post and playlist.

Writing about women and music around the same time as International Women's Day is always a bit weird.

It's as though all the PR companies and record companies wake up to the fact they've got some women on their rosters and, for one day only, start promoting the hell out of them.

OK, some of them remember to promote their female artists the rest of the year as well, but it's frustrating when you spend 364 days of the year receiving largely irrelevant promo (all of which I listen to, by the way) and then one day a year where pretty much 100% of it is relevant and useful.

It isn't great for a writer to receive a press release that contains a lot of stats, data and musical content that would be best served by an in depth piece... on the day that the PR wants the story written about and promoted. It's especially unhelpful when you've received about seven other equally interesting, in depth and complex press releases of equal interest on the same day.

I like writing women and music stories. I'm the music editor at a feminist website, I have licence to write those kind of stories, and commission them, 365 days of the year. As such, it would be better for me if I was given tip offs on interesting stories across the full 365 days, not all at once on one day in March.

Some PR's are very good and do pitch stuff to me with the feminist angle in mind, but most PR's don't. In a way, this is good because it means I have to actively seek out artists and music myself, which stops me getting lazy and complacent, but it's also bad because it means I get sent a lot of highly irrelevant music and music based press releases, that I still feel compelled to waste time listening to.

Long time readers will also be aware that another thing that annoys me is the lack of women headlining music festivals in the UK. I wrote about this two years ago, and it is touched on in this month's F-Word Music blog post, but I don't think I'll be leaving it at that. I think I'll be revisiting the issue before the summer is out. Watch this space.

Siobhan Wilson by Emma Dagger

Today I've also published a review of Siobhan Wilson's video 'Marry You' and the new Chromatic's song 'Time Rider'. Both of which are well worth checking out.

Earlier in the week, I also published another of my whimsical pieces for Medium, this time about possible historical predecessors to the podcast. As per usual, I had a lot of fun writing the piece, though I'm not massively convinced that a lot of people will read it. If you do take the time though, I hope you like it.

Happy week, sad week...

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

It's been a funny old week, hasn't it?

I found myself getting very over-stimulated and over-excited yesterday. Having your laptop locked to the Revoke Article 50 petition and watching it climb by 2000 signatures per minute can do that to you. Especially if you're logged into Twitter at the same time.

Given that it's been a very Brexit orientated week, it's incredibly apt that Four Goods chose today to publish my piece about Veg boxes and Brexit.  I'm not the kind of writer to write a good old j'accuse but I can confess that this is one of two pitches I sent out to publications on the theme of Brexit. The other one was about reading habits in times of national crisis and was going to be a tongue in cheek look at what people were currently reading to forget about Brexit. That was about a month and a half ago though and I think it might have missed it's moment. No one wanted it anyway.

Earlier this week I also had the pleasure of seeing my first piece for Get In Her Ears go up online. This was a track of the day piece, reviewing Havvk's excellent new song. 

I do have other writing plans and, in fact, am hoping some of them will come to fruition very soon.

Will keep you posted...

The book pile has been fed

The book pile needs feeding...

I have requested some library books to fill it up a bit.

I feel vaguely uneasy if there aren't enough new books to read.

Walking, scribing and writing

This lady isn't me by the way. I just liked the picture.

It's been a busy few weeks, hence my absence from the blog...

Earlier today I posted a Q&A interview over on The F-Word that one of my writers, Victoria Bailey, had done with the incendiary spoken word poet Toria Garbutt. 

This was an interesting piece to edit in a number of ways. I don't know a lot about the spoken word scene and, technically, it wasn't really my section of the site. But then, as with things like fanzines and podcasts, it wasn't really anyone else's section either. Victoria is one of my writers and I'd commissioned her to do the piece so I made it my responsibility.

It's great when you get a piece back and it's brilliant. Not only because it makes the editing so much easier, but also because it means you're really excited about putting it up on the site and having people read it. And you totally should read it, because it's a great piece.

This evening I finished writing up and formatting my own interview with Amanda Palmer for Louder Than War. I'd taken on this commission because it was offered to me by Melanie Smith at LTW and I like the Dresden Dolls and also Amanda's solo work, most of which I was introduced to by my friend Jane Appleby. It's been six years since the last Amanda Palmer album, but last year she collaborated with the Welsh singer/songwriter Jasmine Power on the song 'Mr Weinstein will see you now', a track which features in this months F-Word playlist.

I'm happy to report that I really enjoyed talking to Amanda Palmer, and hopefully that comes across in the finished interview. There will be a review of the album to follow in the next couple of days, but it's progress has been slowed by the temp work I've been doing this past week, and will continue to do until Wednesday afternoon.

Why the temp work? Well, because full time freelancing is not paying the bills.

This isn't a surprise to me to be honest, and I had a whole list of strategies when I went full time freelance as to how I was going to tease out my meagre writing earnings. I got a lot of my advice from the start up/freelance community on Medium which, in retrospect, perhaps wasn't the best place to start. I'm getting better advice from the freelance journalism community these days, including amazing women like Lucy O'Brien, Anna Codrea-Rado, Sian Meades, and Robyn Vinter. All of whom will probably never know the extent to which they have helped this self taught music writer these past few months.

Funnily enough, I've had more luck (or near misses...) with the writing opportunities than I have with things like proofreading, copywriting, copyediting and so on. And, as such, I decided to return to something I knew a bit about and knew I could do: Ad hoc temping and casual work.

Over the years I've been a Casual Library Assistant, including doing the book equivalent of supermarket checkout work at the School Library Service for a few weeks in 2005, I've done Clearing work for one of the local universities, I've done two types of Election work, I've hammered online surveys... And, now, I've been a scribe for SEN kids for their mock GCSE's over in Gorton.

Taking a week out to do the scribing has eaten into my journalism time, naturally, and I have been very knackered thanks to the 45 minute walk each way to work, but at least it's bringing in some money and the staff and the kids are nice.

Once the scribing is over, I have another piece to write for Four Goods, but I'm keeping that one largely under wraps at the moment as it's still very much a work in progress.

One thing I do want to do is go back to writing on here more regularly again, as the blog is one of my most enjoyable writing outlets. I also have some other plans I'm hoping to put in place in the next couple of months, but they're still at the planning stage.

There will be more soon.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

A good writing day

Yesterday I wrote a new, tentative, re-draft of chapter three of my punk women book. Because I'm essentially re-structuring and re-writing the book using it's existing, but increasingly unmanageable and incoherent, structure, the process of re-planning and re-drafting is akin to picking shards of glass out of a wound. Or (less grim analogy) to doing a really complicated jigsaw very, very slowly.

It is not a fun process, particularly as the main reason I'm re-doing the first three chapters is because they will be part of a proposal to send out to various literary agents. But, it is interesting to watch a new narrative unfold from my old interviews and secondary material. Originally the narrative was thematic, not chronological really, and it's amazing how different it feels already as a result of re-organising the material chronologically.

I re-drafted, solidly, from 4pm yesterday to 8:30pm, at which point I'd finished, my writing hand felt like it was about to fall off, and I'd missed the campaign meeting about bus re-regulation in Manchester. Which is probably for the best as I suspect I won't be able to commit the time to the campaign that it will need.

I then moved from my desk, which lives under my bed in the living room,  to the kitchen. Where I had a horrible time making very mediocre soup (the blender decided to leak for some reason, plus the tomatoes were the wrong ones to use in retrospect), but perfect hot chocolate (white chocolate + cocoa powder + hot milk and boiling water. Who knew?)

Afterwards I leant back on the sofa in the living room and listened to Ceremonials with my eyes shut, feeling increasingly blissed out. Lovely. Not every day ends like that.